On 22 May 2013 at approximately 14:20 local time, a man was run down by a car before being stabbed and hacked to death by two men with knives and a meat cleaver. They then dragged his body on to the road and waited for police to arrive, telling passers-by that they had attacked a soldier to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British military.

The killing took place on a street in Woolwich in southeast London. The dead man was identified as Lee Rigby, an off-dutybandsman in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers of the British Army. The two alleged assailants were shot by police officers who arrived at the scene, and taken to hospital in serious condition. Both men are native Londoners of Nigerian descent. Politicians and religious leaders including those of the Muslim community condemned the attack.

2013 Woolwich attack
The pub and the tower block on Wellington Street near the attack
Location	Woolwich, Royal Borough of Greenwich, London, England
Date	22 May 2013 14:20 BST (UTC+01:00)
Weapon(s)	Knife Meat cleaver Pistol Vauxhall Tigra car
Deaths	1
Injured (non-fatal)	2 (the suspects)
Suspected perpetrators	Michael Adebolajo Michael Adebowale Male and female alleged co-conspirators

The attack occurred at 14:20 in Wellington Street, near its junction with John Wilson Street, part of the South Circular Road (A205) in Woolwich. Drummer Lee Rigby, a soldier of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was off duty at the time and reportedly wearing a “Help for Heroes” T-shirt. He is believed to have been deliberately hit by a Vauxhall car, then attacked by two men with knives and a meat cleaver. Women later stood over the body of the man, trying to protect him from further attack. The attackers, who were 22 and 28 years old, later stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to take pictures of them. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a passenger on a passing bus, was one of the first people on the scene. While the two men were awaiting a police response, Loyau-Kennett tended to the victim, who later died. She engaged in a conversation with the attackers, one of whom said to her: “We want to start a war in London tonight.” She asked the men to hand over their weapons, which they refused.

Victim

The victim, Lee Rigby

The soldier killed in the attack was later named as 25-year-old Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Rigby, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, had served in Cyprus, Germany and Afghanistan before becoming a recruiter and assisting with duties in the Tower of London. He had a two-year-old son.

The attackers waited for 15 to 20 minutes for armed police to arrive and reportedly danced over the body, while one of the men asked passengers on a bus to take photographs of him.^[10] When armed police arrived, the man with the machete charged at police and was shot by a female officer, while the other did the same with a gun and was also felled by police marksmen. Channel 4 News had broadcast footage showing the two perpetrators having shouted “Allahu Akbar“. The MP for Greenwich and Woolwich Nick Raynsford said that the victim was a soldier at the nearby Royal Artillery Barracks. He also said: “The situation is clearly a very very serious one indeed. One individual is dead and two others are seriously injured and apparently in hospital.” The Guardian newspaper reported that the Ministry of Defence was frustrated with the comment as it would have preferred to have told the family of the victim before the media. The attack took place 300 to 400 metres (980 to 1,300 ft) from the barracks perimeter.

A gun, knives and a machete were later seized at the scene. Police officers, including firearms officers who arrived later, were at the scene. The victim was later pronounced dead.

Suspects

One of the attackers, who was captured on video by a passer-by, said:

The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers, and this British soldier is one, is a eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. By Allah, we swear by the Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. So what if we want to live by the Sharia in Muslim lands. Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us? Rather you lot are extreme. You are the ones. When you drop a bomb, do you think it hits one person or rather your bomb wipes out a whole family. This is the reality. By Allah, if I saw your mother today with a buggy I would help her up the stairs. This is my nature. But we are forced by the Qur’an in Sura at-Tawba [Chapter 9 of the Qur'an], through many, many ayah [verses] throughout the Qur’an that [say] we must fight them as they fight us, a eye for a eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your governments. They don’t care about you. Do you think David Cameron is gonna get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think the politicians are going to die? No it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we ca.., so you can all live in peace. Leave our lands and you will live in peace. That’s all I have to say. Allah’s peace and blessings be upon Muhammad.

Both of the men have been confirmed as Londoners of Nigerian descent. One man has been named as Michael Adebolajo, a 28-year-old, born in Lambeth, London, of Nigerian descent.^[7] He studied sociology at the University of Greenwich and converted from Christianity to Islam. The other was named as Michael Adebowale.

Two additional persons, a man and a woman, were arrested on 23 May on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

Response

In addition to condemning the attack, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe called for calm and a “measured response” while adding “we have met with community representatives, and extra officers remain on duty there tonight. Across London our officers are in contact with their communities too.” Simon Letchford, a Metropolitan Police Commander, later issued a statement that read: “I can understand that this incident will cause community concerns, and I would like to reiterate that we are investigating what has taken place today. … I am asking people to remain calm, and avoid unnecessary speculation.”

The Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a visit to Paris to chair a COBRA meeting. The Ministry of Defence issued a statement that it was urgently investigating the incident. The Home Secretary Theresa May subsequently chaired a meeting of the COBRA committee. The COBRA meeting was attended by the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick and other unnamed members of the intelligence agencies.

After Cameron’s arrival, a second COBRA meeting was held, following which he said:

This country will be absolutely resolute in its stand against extremism and terror. This action was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim communities that give so much to our country. We will defeat violent extremism by standing together. We will not rest until we know every detail. [The attackers told Ingrid Loyau-Kennett that] they wanted to start a war in London and she replied, ‘you are going to lose, it is you against many. She speaks for all of us.

The London mayor Boris Johnson speculated that it was “overwhelmingly likely” to have been a terror attack.

Queen Elizabeth II was said to be “concerned” by the report of the attack. The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the Home Secretary Theresa May and the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband condemned the attack.

The British National Party leader Nick Griffin posted a series of Twitter messages blaming “mass immigration” for the attack and calling for a protest rally in Woolwich. After the English Defence League called on its supporters to mobilise, the same evening over 100 of its members staged a protest at Woolwich Arsenal station in which bottles were thrown at police. Individuals were also arrested in two separate incidents at mosques in Essex and Kent. Speaking in response to the incidents, Julie Siddiqi of the Islamic Society of Britain expressed fears the far-right would use the attack as a way of creating community divisions. An additional 1,200 police officers were deployed across London to prevent revenge attacks on minority communities.

Religious leaders expressed their concern: the Bishop of Woolwich the Rt. Rev. Dr Michael Ipgrave said he was “deeply saddened and distressed”. Muslim leaders denounced the attack: the Muslim Council of Britain said the attack “has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly”; the head of the Ramadhan Foundation Mohammed Shafiqalso condemned the attack; and the director of Faith Matters and co-ordinator of the government-backed anti-Islamophobic project “Tell MAMA” said: “We as the Muslim community will work against anyone who promotes such hatred.” Baroness Neville-Jones, a former security minister and chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, and Colonel Richard Kemp, a former Army commander, suggested blame could be put on internet hate preaching. Neville-Jones told the BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme that “the inspiration that comes from internet hate preaching and jihadist rhetoric … is a very, very serious problem now.”

The BBC News political editor Nick Robinson quoted a government source that had described the perpetrators as being “of Muslim appearance” during the 22 May edition of the BBC News at Six. The BBC received 43 complaints after Robinson used the term; it was also picked up by other media outlets. Robinson issued the apology the following morning.

Asghar Bukhari, of the UK Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said the British government was “completely denying that it has anything to do with the political situation around the Muslim world”.

In an interview with Reuters, the British Islamist Anjem Choudary assigned blame for the attack to British foreign policy, stating that the assailant “said it all in that clip…. He blamed Cameron and he blamed the army and the authorities, and he said that British public should do something about it because they’re not doing anything in their names. From the statements that he’s made himself, it’s clear that that was being targeted. The cause is clear – it’s the British foreign policy.”

Although the British MP George Galloway stated that the attacks were “indefensible”, he tweeted that it was “exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria.” In an interview with Russia Today, Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the anti-war coalition ANSWER, agreed that British foreign policy towards the Middle East had created an “escalating cycle of violence.” Becker also stated that “The British colonial past and its current legacy of intervention and war is undoubtedly a factor” in the motivations behind the attack.

Investigation

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said that it would investigate the incident as per normal circumstances. The IPCC investigate any incident in which police discharge a weapon. Investigators said that they were searching six houses: three houses in Greenwich, south London; one house in Romford, east London; another house in north London and a property in Lincoln in central England.

by Beau Hodai

The U.S. counter terrorism apparatus was used to monitor the Occupy Movement nationwide. Click here to read CMD’s special report, based on a year-long investigation.

Government Surveillance of Occupy Movement

On May 20, 2013, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy 
released the results of a year-long investigation: “Dissent or Terror:
 How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With 
Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”

 The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained
 from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how
 state/regional “fusion center” personnel monitored the Occupy Wall
 Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012.

The report also examines how fusion centers and other counter terrorism entities that 
have emerged since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have
 worked to benefit numerous corporations engaged in public-private
 intelligence sharing partnerships. 

While the report examines many instances of fusion center monitoring
 of Occupy activists nationwide, the bulk of the report 
details how counter terrorism personnel engaged in the Arizona Counter
 Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC, commonly known as the “Arizona fusion center”) monitored and otherwise surveilled citizens active in
 Occupy Phoenix, and how this surveillance benefited a number of 
corporations and banks that were subjects of Occupy Phoenix protest 
activity.

While small glimpses into the governmental monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement have emerged in the past, there has not been any reporting — until now — that details the breadth and depth with which the nation’s post-September 11, 2001 counter terrorism apparatus has been applied to politically engaged citizens exercising their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights.

REPORT Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s ‘Counter Terrorism’ Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street

REPORT APPENDIX open records materials cited in report.

PRESS RELEASE ”New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide”(PDF)

SOURCE MATERIALS almost 10,000 pages of open records materials are archived on DBA Press.

PRWATCH ARTICLE ”Dissent or Terror: How Arizona’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate Interests, Turned on Occupy Phoenix”

Key Findings

Key findings of this report include:

• How law enforcement agencies active in the Arizona fusion
 center dispatched an undercover officer to infiltrate activist groups
 organizing both protests of the American Legislative Exchange Council 
(ALEC) and the launch of Occupy Phoenix and how the work of this 
undercover officer benefited ALEC and the private corporations that
 were the subjects of these demonstrations.

• How fusion centers, funded in large part by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, expended countless hours and tax dollars in the monitoring of 
Occupy Wall Street and other activist groups.

• How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has financed
 social media “data mining” programs at local law enforcement agencies engaged in fusion centers.

• How counter terrorism government employees applied facial
 recognition technology, drawing from a state database of driver’s
 license photos, to photographs found on Facebook in the effort to 
profile citizens believed to be associated with activist groups.

• How corporations have become part of the homeland security “information sharing environment” with law enforcement/intelligence agencies through various public-private intelligence sharing partnerships. The report examines multiple instances in which the counter terrorism/homeland security apparatus was used to gather intelligence relating to activists for the benefit of corporate interests that were the subject of protests.

• How private groups and individuals, such as Charles Koch, 
Chase Koch (Charles’ son and a Koch Industries executive), Koch 
Industries, and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council 
have hired off-duty police officers — sometimes still armed and in
 police uniforms — to perform the private security functions of keeping
 undesirables (reporters and activists) at bay.

• How counter terrorism personnel monitored the protest
 activities of citizens opposed to the indefinite detention language
 contained in National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

• How the FBI applied “Operation Tripwire,” an initiative
 originally intended to apprehend domestic terrorists through the use
 of private sector informants, in their monitoring of Occupy Wall 
Street groups. [Note: this issue was reported on exclusively by DBA/CMD in December, 2012.]

Press

• The Progressive, “Spying on Occupy Activists”, Matthew Rothschild
• AlterNet, “How America’s National Security Apparatus–in Partnership With Big Corporations–Cracked Down on Dissent, Alex Kane
• In These Times, “How the Government Targeted Occupy”, Lisa Graves (also reprinted at PRWatch.org)
• The Big Picture, New Report Details Surveillance of OWS, Thom Hartmann
• Democracy Now!, “Editor of The Progressive, Matt Rothschild, Calls For Eric Holder to Resign Over Spying on Press, Occupy Protesters”, Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh

OUR GENERATION

Check it out! The Earth Guardians “Voice of Youth” have just filmed their first music video, and it is awesome! A huge thank you to Musa and BlackSun Cinema for filming, producing and editing this most excellent video… Spread it far and wide, and lets help these youth standing up for their future, get their message out to the world!

by Jacob Devaney (Founder and Director, Culture Collective)

At Evergreen Middle School near Denver, Colorado, young members of Earth Guardians made a presentation and sang a rap which has infuriated local parents and brought angry threats upon the school and the youth. Some are calling it “liberal indoctrination” others calling it “censorship,” the school has apologized, and what started out as a simple presentation by 13-year-old Xiuhtezcatl and his 9-year-old brother Itzcuauhtl has turned into a national story. The youths presentation included a rap that they wrote about the dangers of fracking stating, “poisoned the water, poisoned the air, poisoned the people, do you think that’s fair?” and included a call-and-response for the students, “When I say what the, you say frack. What the… frack, what the… frack.”

Earth Guardians is an organization started and run by youth (most under 13 years old) whose mission is, “…to educate and assist youth in becoming active caretakers of our precious earth, and to empower them in becoming outspoken environmental leaders, both locally and globally.” Earth Guardians achieve their mission through nature programs, environmental education, message-driven performances and community activism. From their website, “Earth Guardians provide youth with the knowledge, tools, and leadership qualities needed to envision and shape a healthy planet, one that we can all be proud to pass on to our next generations.”

A local teacher had learned about Xiuhtezcatl and Earth Guardians through a film produced by Peter Gabriels organization, Witness, and she thought that a presentation would be inspirational for her students. Witness features youth activists and promotes video advocacy. The short video focuses on our Public Trust, and the governments responsibility to make sure our air and water is protected while highlighting the work of Xiuhtezcatl and Earth Guardians.

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This Friday
Don’t Miss it!

Three local bands for one great price at the coolest venue you’ve never been to! The new Analog Cafe & Theater, with adjacent bar and restaurant, is where we’ll be this Friday, May 24th, along with two sizzling hot acoustic bands: The Bottlecap Boys and The Renegade String Band. Come in out of the rain and boogie-down Portland-style with us!
http://www.waywardvessel.com/tour

And the winner is…

We’re excited to announce that we have been selected along with 3 other bands from all over the west as finalists in the 2013 NW String Summit Band Competition to take place on July 19th! Stay posted for details and updates. http://www.stringsummit.com/

Read our latest blog entry about using the power of a Wayward Vessel jingle to move people across oceans. http://blog.waywardvessel.com

So discourse has become an exercise in who can shout the loudest or use the most vulgar language? Is this an example of the alternative? Crassness and verbal abuse are today’s currency in community activism? Lord, help us!

“I have seen the enemy, and it is us!” -Pogo-

SNARLING AS DISCOURSE

OCCUPY protesters attempt to argue with AFP members until an elder teaches them shouting is easier than thinking.

Salish ‘Clown’ Harasses Elderly, Bystanders, Peacekeeper

Footage shot during the Seattle “Bring the Fight to the Banks” rally on July 20th, 2012.

One of the ‘clowns’ seen in the video was present at the 9-13-12 Seattle federal courthouse rally in support of the Grand Jury resisters.

Fool on the Hill

Clown @ 9-13-12 Seattle federal courthouse rally for Grand Jury Resisters

POLICE HECKLER REVERTS TO TYPE

Here, the Seattle police spokesperson shows great restraint and professionalism on May Day, 2013, a trait increasingly in demand from today’s LEO’s. The heightened training they receive today was sorely lacking not so long ago. Moreover, this officer’s professionalism discredits his antagonist better than any arrest could.

Malicious Clown Baits Seattle Police

The following video was produced in 1989. It was included as part of an internal training PD video as the boys in blue best attempt at humor.

At the time, commanders immediately judged the content as inappropriate. The video was ordered to be destroyed and to not be distributed internally. Now, as the Seattle Viaduct is being reduced to rubble, this collector’s item of the fond memories it brought to area residents remains. Viewer discretion as to how this reflects on the LEO’s sensitivity to social justice issues is advised.

UNDER THE VIADUCT

By Jim Walsh, 5-17-13 (Contributing Reporter: Andy McNeil)

Caleb “Kai’ Lawrence McGillivary, ‘Hatchet Hitchhiker’

KILLER ON THE ROAD?

HADDONFIELD, N.J. — An Internet celebrity-turned-homicide suspect was arrested in Philadelphia on Thursday, two days after he was reportedly spotted in New Jersey.

Caleb “Kai” McGillvary, who gained fame online as the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker, was taken into custody around 6:30 p.m. at a Greyhound bus station in Center City, authorities said.

McGillvary, accused of killing a North Jersey man Sunday, was last seen Tuesday at “a light-rail station in (the) Haddonfield, N.J., area,” according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.

McGillvary, a 24-year-old homeless man, had been considered armed and dangerous.

Delaware River Port Authority spokesman Tim Ireland said the suspect had spent a night in Gloucester County with close friends, who gave him $250 and drove him to the Woodcrest station of the PATCO Hi-Speed­line. After dropping him off, however, the friends called police.

Surveillance cameras, Ireland said, showed the man boarding a westbound train. Alerted by the DRPA, Philadelphia police arrested McGillvary at the Filbert Street bus station.

McGillvary became a YouTube star after he claimed to have intervened in a Feb. 1 attack on two people in Fresno, Calif. In a TV news interview that went viral, McGillvary described in graphic but disjointed style how he wielded a hatchet against the alleged assailant, a man who had picked him up while hitchhiking.

Both the attacker and his victims survived the California incident.

McGillvary is accused of killing 73-year-old Joseph Galfy Jr. of Clark. The victim, an attorney, was found in his home around 2 p.m. Monday, when police were asked to check on his well-being. An autopsy on Tuesday determined Galfy died from blunt force trauma.

McGillvary posted a possible reference to the Clark assault on his Facebook page.

“What would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a stranger’s house … realizing someone had drugged (and) raped (you)?” he wrote on Tuesday. “What would you do?”

Authorities said McGillvary relied on strangers for food, lodging and transportation.

Prior to his arrest, some people in Haddonfield expressed little concern over the fugitive’s possible presence.

“I actually would’ve been really hyped (to meet McGillvary),” said John Devine, an employee at Kinetic Skateboarding on Kings Highway. Devine noted he would have recognized McGillvary from Internet videos.

The suspect will be processed in Philadelphia and returned to New Jersey. Authorities said McGillvary’s bail was previously set at $3 million.

NJ police found the body of Joseph Galfy, an attorney and a member of the Clark Chamber of Commerce, on Monday in his home. Galfy was severely beaten (he died of blunt force trauma) and the Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said Galfy was just wearing underwear and his socks.

According to the Star-Ledger, “They met, an unlikely pair, in Times Square last Saturday night… Their rendezvous, most of it later spent in and around Joseph Galfy Jr.’s ranch-style house on Starlite Drive in Clark, would last about 24 hours, until sometime Sunday evening when, authorities said, their encounter turned violent after a sexual tryst.”

On Tuesday, McGillvary had written on his Facebook page, “what would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a strangers house… walked to the mirror and seen come dripping from the side of your face from your mouth, and started wretching, realizing that someone had drugged, raped, and blown their fuckin load in you? what would you do?” but prosecutor Theodore Romankow had called the status update “self-serving.”

Kai McGillvary in Times Square 2 days before the Killing

by Rania Khalek on May 14, 2013

Rania Khalek

Florida Passes Bill To Speed Up Executions

For a state with 24 death row exonerations under its belt (the highest in the country), you would think Florida might want to slow down its execution process to avoid putting innocent people to death. But Florida lawmakers are doing just the opposite.

Late last month both the Florida House and Senate passed the “Timely Justice Act”, which Republican Gov. Rick Scott is expected to sign into law, according to Reuters.

Under Florida’s current process, the Governor signs and issues death warrants at his discretion. The Act would change this by setting up automatic deadlines for filings to speed up the appeals process. Once appeals are exhausted and clemency denied, the Governor would be forced to issue a death warrant within 30 days and an execution date within 180 days.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, or FADP, says 13 of the 405 inmates on death row in Florida fall within this category and would therefore be issued death warrants immediately. Another 80 prisoners have exhausted their appeals and are waiting on clemency hearings, making them vulnerable to immediately issued death warrants as well. That means that if the “kill them faster” Act is signed into law, the state of Florida could execute as many as 90 inmates within the first six months of its signing.

Proponents of the Act argue that the appeals process is too lengthy, costly and delays justice. Indeed, the process can take decades and cost million$, but that is to ensure justice not delay it. After all, several of Florida’s condemned were on death row for over a decade before proving their innocence. One example is Juan Melendez, who spent 18 years on death row and lost three appeals in front of the Florida Supreme Court before his release. Had the “streamline murder” Act been in place at the time there’s a good chance Melendez and others like him would have been killed for crimes they didn’t commit.

If the state insists on taking someone’s life (a morally corrupt position to start with), shouldn’t it be 110 percent certain the accused are guilty? And therein lies just one of the many, many problem with the death penalty; rarely does this kind of certainty exist. The state can always overturn a sentence if an inmate is later found innocent, but not if they’re already dead. Lethal injection is permanent.

Republican Senator Rob Bradley basically admitted that he doesn’t care if Florida puts innocent people to death, saying, “this is not about guilt or innocence, it’s about timely justice.” Apparently, in Flordia, convenience is more important than life-or-death justice.

As appalling as Bradley’s comments were, his argument was at least based in reality (a morally deficient one), as opposed to the many legislators who cited scripture as the basis of their claims.

Matt Gaetz, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored the House bill, actually said during the House debate, “Only God can judge. But we sure can set up the meeting.” Last I checked, the constitution made no reference to the judicial power of the mythical being in the sky.

One reporter described the House debate as, “sound[ing] like a church service at times, with quotes like ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord,’ ‘Genesis 9:6. If man sheds blood, by man shall his blood be shed,’ and ‘Those of you who are without sin, cast the first vote yes’ echoing through the chambers.”

Instead of citing scripture, how about using facts, beginning with this one: Florida inmates spend an average of 13 years on death row, which is already below the national average. On top of leading the country in exonerations, Florida has executed 75 inmates (second only to Texas, which is nearing 500) since resuming capital punishment in the 1970s, which comes out to one exoneration for every 3 executions. And for the past two years in a row, Florida has sentenced more people to death than any other state, a result of its failure to require unanimous jury recommendations for death sentences, among other deficiencies.

Despite all of this, Florida’s GOP, the same party that claims to value life above all else, wants to speed up the death penalty conveyer belt. As more and more states lean towards abolition, Florida seems to be sprinting in the opposite direction, so much so that Gov. Scott is fast tracking inmates to the death chamber with or without signing the Act.

Since entering office in 2011, Scott has signed nine death warrants, three of which were issued recently with executions scheduled over a 26 day stretch beginning May 29. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise considering this is the same man who axed the commission that oversaw capital cases to save $400,000 per year, a pittance to be exact.

Seth Penalver, who was acquitted last year after spending 13 years on Florida’s death row (18 years behind bars) for a triple murder he did not commit, said that if given the chance he would say the following to Gov. Scott:

“Before he signs it, I would ask him to sit down with those who were convicted and later exonerated or got new trials because of evidence that was withheld. By speeding up the appeals process, are you willing to kill an innocent man? Would you kill me?”

I urge you, particularly Floridians, to contact Gov. Scott’s office and demand he veto this bill. Otherwise I’m afraid his answer to Penalver will be “yes”.

So called ‘Yuppie Development’ on the right

The following is re-posted from the Puget Sound (A)narchists site as a non-trivial example of the world envisioned by certain violent street radicals:

Vancouver, BC: Arson claim

(A)narchists held a ‘LAW & DISORDER’ conference at Portland State University recently where two ardent feminist women were tabling literature from their group. Reportedly, 2 male ‘transgender women’ approached and challenged the feminists for the views of their group respective of gender politics regarding trans men and women. When the feminists refused to mollify the 2 males, they were assaulted. One male took out a magic marker and began to deface some books/literature on the table. Shortly thereafter, one grabbed a stack of literature and fled the premises on the college campus.

Nobody present during the attack did anything to discourage it. Later, blaming the victims, the organizers of the event apologized to the group said to be associated with the attackers, i.e. the ‘trans’ community. The following posts/comments gleaned from a site reflecting on the incident, attitudes, and those responsible are published here to provide a glimpse of the same to ensure against deletion.

Peacey Spacegoat, Seattle, WA

Gregory

Lauren Riot

Paxana, Portland, OR

Bryan Michael Wiedeman, 25

As part of Occupy Portland, Bryan “took over” (cough *stole* cough)  a house from a 66-year-old African-American woman named Gloria Canson (WATCH THE VIDEO ).

Bryan was arrested in 2012 in Portland on 72 felony counts of vandalizing ATMs.

Bryan accepted a plea in the fall of 2012 for his ATM-bashing that apparently included 5 years supervised probation, 20 days of weekend jail, 80 hours of community service, and $43,084.59 in restitution.

He was also ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and any recommended treatment that comes as a result of it.

Bryan Michael Wiedeman, 25

Bryan Michael Wiedeman, 25

Bryan, et al, Complains of CPD Violating his Photojournalism Rights

Bryan @ 9-13-12 Seattle federal courthouse rally for Grand Jury Resisters

Housing Wanted

By Paxana Non Grata (aka: Bryan Michael Wiedeman, 25. Paxana Parsons) · Friday, May 29, 2009

Looking for a room starting the first of july. I’m not terribly picky, just a few things. I’m being evicted (another landlord selling the place), so these conditions may go more lax as the clock continues to tick. Also vanc is looking for a place too, but not quite as dire-ly as me. Also a few of these conditions could flex if you’re looking for a subletter or something less long-term. Must: Be a vegetarian house. Not necessarily ideologically, but in practice around the house. Be nearer-in than East 122nd. Be nearer-in than Lombard Be nearer-in than West 24th. Be nearer in than Gladstone. Be no more than $350 a month. Not allow indoor-smoking. Should: (though not required) Not have many pets. One or two are ok. I’m allergic, but have lived with pets before. Just not uber-cat-house or anything. Be vegan or no-meat-freegan (again, in practice) Be politically left-wing. (i.e. bare minimum: If I mention something fucked up the cops did, don’t explain to me how hard their job is) Be on bus-routes. (I’m planning on getting back into biking, but I need that safety net) About me: My name is Paxana or Pax for short. I’m a twenty-two year old vegan anarchist. a TON of my time goes into my job, a barista at the Red & Black Cafe. I’m involved in some political organizing, though not as much as I’d like to be. I’m a non-smoker, non-420 (whatever that means), sporadic drinker, though I find drinking around the house to be pretty depressing, My work hours are subject to widely vary, so on work-days I would be getting up anywhere between 6am and 2pm, and getting home anywhere between 4pm and 1am. I’m a heavy sleeper, so you needn’t worry about having to tip-toe around your own house, but a party-every-weekend kinda house just isn’t going to work for me. I some bad rental history from my teenager-ness, and some good rental history from my most recent accommodations. Uh, yeah. I’ll update this as I think of more thingys. If you’d like to interview me for your place, send the details to my email at VeganBikePunk@gmail.com, call me at my number, which is on my facebook, or message me on here.

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